


Siren Song

by JMount74



Series: Fluffember 2020 [14]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27558430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMount74/pseuds/JMount74
Summary: Virgil can't help but listen to the siren's song.
Series: Fluffember 2020 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997284
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Siren Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gumnut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gumnut/gifts).



> For Gumnut-Logic and her prompt: Virgil + Going the extra distance for a brother.
> 
> It also meets prompt 14 for Fluffember: Song

If you ask Virgil what his loves are he will name three:  
TWO  
MUSIC  
ART

If you ask Virgil what his best quality is he will hum and haw before rubbing the back of his neck with embarrassment and saying he cares? As if it is a question he is asking you.

If you asked any of his family what quality most embodied Virgil, most of them would say some form of love. Top of the list, voted for by Alan, Gordon and Kayo, is hugs. John is more poetic with his choice – Virgil is sensitive. Scott is the total opposite to John and goes for something more practical – he looks after everyone.

If you asked them what was his biggest failing you’d get a lot of ‘um’s’ and ‘er’s’ and other various word whiskers before they would even consider the question. 

The truth is Virgil Tracy is your all-round good guy. The type your parents would be delighted if you brought him home. So delighted that your mum would be planning the wedding and your dad would be sharing a drink with him and asking what his intentions were. On your first date.

That does not mean Virgil has no faults. He has plenty, he thinks, and is secretly amused that his family do not seem inclined to name them. But give them enough time and they will. Alan and Gordon say he will call them out on their crap. Kayo will say something along the lines of him being too much of a pushover. John will just repeat himself – Virgil is too sensitive.

It is Scott who voices the fault they all recognise but do not admit. Virgil cares too much.

Of course, Virgil here turns to Scott and fixes him with The Stare. Scott holds Virgil’s look for a few beats before biting his lip and looking to John, who is silently chuckling.

After all, who taught Virgil to care too much? Their biggest brother could be such a hypocrite at times.

If you ask Scott what Virgil’s greatest love is, he will simply say Family.

TBTBTBTBTBTBTBTBTBTB 

Virgil does recognise he has more faults than his brothers will attribute to him. His biggest fault, he thinks, is that he cannot fail to respond to the siren’s song.

He made the mistake of saying this to Gordon once, thinking that Gordon would understand. After all, Gordon hears and obeys the siren song of the sea. But Gordon just laughed.

Every one of his brothers had a siren song.   
Gordon’s is the water. If he goes more than a few hours without getting wet Gordon gets irritable.  
Alan’s is adrenaline. He needs the speed, and it’s one of the reasons he hates being left behind on missions.  
Kayo likes to be in control. Not of others, but of the situation. She has been known to behead the practice dummies when a mission goes wrong.  
John’s siren is space. He hears her call constantly when on earth, and if he stays more than one night John seems to get withdrawal symptoms. John calls it ‘Gravity’, Virgil knows better.  
Scott – Scott’s sirens are complex. He is called by the sky as constantly as John is called by space, but the siren call of family keeps Scott grounded. Scott also cares too much. Way, way too much. He will often throw his life on the line if it could save someone else’s, even more so if it’s for family. His brothers often call Scott reckless, but Virgil knows better. The thought of one of them being even only possibly harmed is so, so powerful a siren that Scott would willing die instead.

Virgil understands this because he hears this call too. And he knows his brothers do too, even if it is only Scott who gets called out on it.

When Virgil lists his three loves he purposely misses one out:  
Virgil loves being the medic.

Being able to care for his brothers is a stronger siren call than even his art – which can keep him awake and creating for days – and his music – which inspiration for has a habit of striking at odd times and always distracts him from the task at hand.

And Scott is the only one who recognises this.

TBTBTBTBTBTBTBTBTBTB

It started when Virgil was three. Grandma had given him a play doctor set. It contained a stethoscope, thermometer, syringe, blood pressure gauge, a reflex hammer, scissors and lots of bandages.

He would take great delight in ‘playing doctor’ with a baby Gordon and his older brothers. John soon started locking himself away in his and Scott’s room when the kit came out – one too many hammers on the knee had sharpened John’s survival instinct at the tender age of four.

His mom confiscated it three weeks later when she came into the lounge to get everyone ready for dinner to find baby Gordon wrapped up like a mummy. She had looked sharply at Scott, but he had his back to the whole scenario and was wrapped up in his homework.

From that time onwards Virgil looked out for anything that could teach him more. 

Scott and John jointly bought him an encyclopaedia on health and wellbeing when he was eight. It was too heavy for him to lift and lived it’s life on his desk. It did not take too long to become dogeared. 

Virgil took every health-related course he could – first aid, paediatric first aid, Rescue Scout’s first aid badge – you name it, Virgil completed it. By the time he was in his last year at middle school and contemplating what to take as a career when he transferred to high school, it was pretty much a given that he would be a medic like their grandmother.

However, it was not to be. Early in the winter semester they lost their mom. And all of Virgil’s knowledge was useless. He had been unable to save her. Their dad had frequently pointed out that his knowledge had saved both Alan and Scott by getting them treatment early, but his mom had been too far gone to survive anyway. It didn’t help.

And Virgil put aside the idea of being the medic. He couldn’t save his mom, of what use was he?

By the time he was to graduate from high school his father had already put the plans in motion for iR, so Virgil fell back on another love – engineering. He wanted so much to be part of this vision, to be able to save others as they had not been able to save their mom.

Scott was fresh accepted into the USAF, and it would give him the skills he needed to lead and troubleshoot, not that he didn’t have those skills already, 19 years wrangling four younger brothers had already taught him that.

John had been accepted by NASA and was already in training for the ISS. Such training necessary to living on the planned satellite.

So it seemed engineering would be the best option to help this dream. Imagine his shock when his Dad sat down with him and asked him to be the team medic. His automatic response had been no, but between dad and grandma, he was soon talked around.

And once again medicine called to him her sweet siren song: learn all about me and keep your brothers safe.

TBTBTBTBTBTBTBTBTBTB

But he hated her as equally as he loved her.

For being trained meant he understood just how serious things were. 

So when Gordon was paralysed by the hydrofoil accident Virgil understood exactly what could happen. When Scott was rescued after being held captive and tortured for six months Virgil understood far more than the rest of the family the long-term effects this could have. When John was trapped on Five with an errant AI and running out of air, Virgil understood the slim chances of survival and the knock-on issues being in space could bring. And when Alan and Kayo were missing after rescuing the miner near the sun Virgil understood just what complications there could surface.

The ‘this could happen’ visions that hit him were hard to bear. And sometimes these caused him to go way over the top to prevent issues that were only ‘could’ not ‘will’.

As he was now.

John had been unconscious in the infirmary for three days now. It was so rare these days for John to join them, but the earthquake had been so big and covered an area so massive it had been all hands on deck. They had begun to work shifts so that there was always a minimum of three working at any one time. It was on the second day that disaster struck.

The aftershock caused an abandoned building to collapse just while John was walking outside. He had sustained multiple fractures and contusions, and a blow to the head. Everything was either cast or bandaged up, all they were waiting for was for John to wake up.

It was starting to worry Virgil that John was not waking up. He ran and ran and reran the scans. He was in constant discussion with Johns Hopkins hospital about possible complications and signs to look out for. 

Scott was worried about him. Virgil was lost, was working himself to exhaustion again. He’d seen it happen so many times when one of them was seriously injured. He’d had his own close calls, so he understood what was happening, but Virgil was hyper-fixating.

If John had been in a hospital he would be hooked up to all manner of machinery, alarms at the ready for anything. Nurses would call in and check every hour or so, depending on the seriousness of the issue. The last time one of them had been that injured – Gordon his mind helpfully supplied – the nurses had spent the first day checking every hour, then the checks on day two went to every two hours. They relied on the machinery to alert them.

The machinery they had in the island infirmary was far more sophisticated, and far more sensitive, having been tweaked by Brains. So there really was no need for Virgil to be here 24/7, checking and checking and checking. Brains had started muttering about no longer being trusted, although he knew that this was just Virgil’s way when his medic side came to the fore and refused to back down.

Grandma had not been able to get through to him. Despite what she said, he was most definitely her favoured grandson, and the others knew it. But he had brushed her protests aside. He could sleep perfectly well in the spare bed in the infirmary. This would be true if he actually did try to sleep. He could eat the meals that MAX brought down. Also would be true if he actually did.

He was too wrapped up in his medic role to notice anything else. The siren song was too strong.

And so Scott was sent in. Three days with no sleep or food and only coffee had made Virgil look like one of Alan’s zombies – giant black bags under the eyes, his eyes so red-rimmed it looked like he was wearing make-up, and a complexion so pale a Goth would be jealous.

Scott’s mission: Get Virgil to bed.

Unwinding Virgil was a skill honed by almost 25 years of work. It was an Older Brother Skill – John had this talent too, as did Virgil for the terrible two, but Scott was the ultimate winner. He never shared with anyone what worked with which brother, but he was always successful.

He wasn’t so sure he would be today. He sat on the spare bed and Virgil sat next to him.

‘Virg, how’s John today?’  
‘No change. Breathing, stats and brain activity are all strong and normal.’  
‘Any further idea why John is still not awake?’  
‘Not really. JH says he will wake when he is ready and not before, but they said his stats were positive.’  
‘Good, good.’  
‘You look like crap, Scott.’  
‘Yeah, well.’  
‘Have you been sleeping?’  
‘Yes, Virg.’  
‘Eating?’  
‘Yes, Virg.’  
‘You’re worrying too much.’  
‘Yes, Virg. Yes I am.’  
‘Don’t be, he’ll be fine.’  
‘Mmm.’  
‘He will, Scott. The vitals are all good.’  
‘Are you sure, Virg? Because I’m really worried.’  
‘Hey, Scott, it’s ok. Look, you and I know Brains over-engineers things. If the machines say he’s good, then I trust that he is good.’  
‘Are you absolutely sure?’  
‘Of course I am!’  
‘I – I don’t know.’  
‘I can’t believe you’re doubting Brains! Don’t you trust him any more?’  
‘I do! I do, I just…I don’t know, Virg, John should be awake by now and he’s not.’  
‘Honestly, Scott, stop worrying so much.’  
‘Well, if you’re sure, Virg, maybe I’ll grab a quick nap here.’

Here Scott yawned. Widely. And he watched through the corner of his eye as Virgil followed suit. So he yawned again, and Virgil copied him again.

‘Maybe I am a little tired.’  
‘Why don’t you lay down here, Scott, and I can keep an eye on you both.’  
‘Maybe I will.’  
‘I’ll sit in this chair next to you.’  
‘Ok, Virg. You win’

Scott lay back and closed his eyes. Virgil manoeuvred the chair next to him and took his hand. Virgil began humming and Scott grinned to himself. Less than five minutes, that was his guess.

Sure enough, five minutes later Virgil was fast asleep in the chair. Disentangling himself gently so as not to wake him, Scott hopped out of the bed and looked fondly at his brother. Lowering the bed to the right height, he gently swung Virgil around until he could turn him into the bed and covered him with the blanket he’d thoughtfully provided for Scott.

‘So that’s how you do it.’ Scott whipped around to see John watching him. Flashing him a grin Scott nodded. ‘Once you get an overtired Virgil to start humming, he’ll hum himself to sleep. Just need to give him a reason to hum.’ John looked thoughtful. ‘And pretending you needed sleep?’ Scott chuckled. ‘Just a little reverse psychology. If that hadn’t have worked I’d already laid the groundwork for arguing on the subject of trusting Brains.’

Scott pulled the chair up to the head of the bed and started carding his fingers through Virgil’s hair, quietly humming as he did. His brother sighed happily and snuggled further into the blanket.

‘Hey, John?’  
‘Yeah, Scott?’  
‘Is there a word for this action?’  
‘The action of running your fingers through someone’s hair?’  
‘Yeah.’  
‘Of course there is. It’s called cafuné.’  
‘Oh, thanks.’

John narrowed his eyes, sure that they had had this conversation before.

‘Hey, Scott?’  
‘Yeah, John?’  
‘Pretty sure you already know that.’  
‘I do, John.’  
‘Then why are you asking?’  
‘Just checking you are alright, John. Just checking.’

John rolled his eyes, but was soon fast asleep, lulled by his big brother’s soothing tone.

Virgil’s medic siren may have kept him awake for days, but it was no match for his music siren when wielded by his oldest brother.


End file.
